Question #00d80

1 Answer
May 7, 2017

Here's what I got.

Explanation:

Start by calculating the number of moles of hydrogen chloride dissolved to make your solution.

50 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g"))) * "1 mole HCl"/(36.46 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("g")))) = "1.3714 moles HCl"

Now, a solution's molarity tells you the number of moles of solute present for very "1 L" of solution. In your case, you have 1.3714 moles of hydrochloric acid present in "250 L" of solution, which means that "1 L" of solution will contain

1 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("L solution"))) * "1.3714 moles HCl"/(250color(red)(cancel(color(black)("L solution")))) = "0.0055 moles HCl"

You can thus say that the solution has a molarity of "0.0055 mol L"^(-1).

As you know, hydrochloric acid si a strong acid, which implies that it ionizes completely in aqueous solution to produce hydrogen cations and chloride anions

"HCl"_ ((aq)) -> "H"_ ((aq))^(+) + "Cl"_ ((aq))^(-)

As you can see, every mole of hydrogen chloride that is dissolved in water produces 1 mole of hydrogen ions. This means that your solution will have

["H"^(+)] = ["HCl"] = "0.0055 mol L"^(-1)

I'll leave this value rounded to two sig figs, but keep in mind that you only have one significant figure for the mass of hydrogen chloride.

By definition, the "pH" of the solution is equal to

"pH" = - log(["H"^(+)])

In your case, you will have

"pH" = - log(0.0055) = 2.3

This value is rounded to one decimal place.